Likewise, the more passengers protested the agency’s computerized strip-searches at airports, the more it insisted that its “whole-body imagers” didn’t violate anyone’s modesty. It even changed the porno-scanners’ name to convince us: “AIT [advanced imaging technology] machines … have built-in safeguards to protect passenger privacy,” administrator John Pistole repeatedly asserted. Indeed, he called those safeguards “rigorous” in an editorial for USAToday.

About half the contraptions with which the TSA peers beneath our clothes accept this software, and the TSA is retro-fitting those; the other half will continue revealing us “graphic[ally], no doubt about it.” The agency says it’s investigating a similar fix for the latter. Meanwhile, it’s installing porno-scanners that Mr. Gingerbread allegedly sanitizes at an additional 29 airports, all of them regional. If you have so far managed to avoid Our Rulers’ ogling by patronizing small airports, you may want to quit flying entirely now.

The system also remains under the Feds’ administration — the same sociopaths who controlled security at airports before 9/11, indeed, the ones whose failures that tragic morning resulted in 3,000 deaths.

“Wait a minute!” Sean and Sharon Sheeple snort. “Airports had private screeners then, that was the whole point of the TSA, to federalize security so we’d be safer.”

It’s true that private companies hired screeners and issued their paychecks prior to the TSA; a few airports such as San Francisco’s still do. But these firms merely supplied personnel for checkpoints, the way a temporary agency does. When Jane at Worldwide Widgets’ front desk calls in sick, Acme Temps sends a substitute who identifies with his host that day: He answers the phone, “Worldwide Widgets,” not “Acme Temps.” Technically, Acme Temps employs him, but he’s carrying out Worldwide Widgets’ orders.

Ditto for screeners prior to 9/11. Private companies employed them, yes, but every move those screeners made, every item they confiscated or allowed onboard, every question they asked, came straight from the FAA’s playbook. And the FAA punished airlines and airports for any deviation from its regulations, however absurd the rules. Remember the silly inquisition 10 years ago about whether you’d packed your own bags? Yep, the agency mandated that waste of time.

Nor did the FAA shy from admitting its monopoly on pestering — sorry, protecting passengers. The “Introduction” to its “Strategig [sic] Plan” of January 2001 announced that its “nearly 50,000 people [are] dedicated to improving the safety, security, and efficiency of aviation and commercial space transportation in a way that protects the environment and national security.” [Emphasis in original.] And its “Mission-Driven Goals” that year included “Improv[ing] explosive device and weapons detection” and “Improv[ing] airport security” by “Certification of Screening Companies, Deploy[ing] Advanced Security Technology [and] Automat[ing] Passenger Screening…”

All the TSA did was reveal this stranglehold to the public’s view. It also exponentially increased the cost: “Private” screening consumed about $700 million annually. The TSA’s budget this year was a whopping $8.2 billion.

They also sexually assault passengers with a boldness that would stun Joe Stalin. No regime anywhere at any time, no matter how brutal or totalitarian, has ever routinely molested so many citizens.

Thanks to the Feds’ fake, very dangerous “security,” 3,000 of our friends and relatives perished on 9/11 while countless more suffer sexual abuse all from an unconstitutional, indecent, and brutal agency.

Not even Superman could legitimize this barbaric bureaucracy; Mr. Gingerbread certainly can’t. Abolish the TSA.

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